Monday, July 26, 2010

AB and I are not engaged: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. (thanks, Chuck D...openings have never been my thing.)

Last weekend, AB and I spent the weekend in Ocean City, NJ with my family. I consider myself a relatively well-seasoned traveler. This year alone will have taken me to Mexico, New Orleans, Las Vegas (twice), Buffalo (okay, so that one's not super thriller material, but STILL), Ft. Lauderdale, and Jamaica. But nowhere makes me as happy as OCNJ, especially when my parents, brother, aunts, and cousins are there. Probably because my family rules.

One evening, while tailgating in a parking lot waiting to be seated for dinner, my mom, who never drinks more than one cocktail every now and then, decided she wanted to play keep-up with my more alcoholically savvy brother and cousin. She downed three glasses of wine, and moments later was belting "Don't Stop Believin" across the parking lot--the Glee version. My mom loves AB, so her dance moves eventually carried her over to him. I thought nothing of it, since I'm so glad that they get along, until I overheard her listing who she wanted to invite to our wedding. I tried to divert her, to no avail. Then she danced away.

Not five minutes later, I found her cornering him, pointing out a small infant and informing him that she "wants one of those." In her next breath, she thought it would be an excellent time to remind him that once we did have children, she planned to move in with us for a few weeks...to help out. And before I had the chance to intervene, she also found it important to mention that if, in childbirth, my life were to suddenly be jeopardized, she'd have to choose my life over the baby's, and were they on the same page about that?

Over the course of one evening, my mother had me engaged, married, pregnant, was moving in with us, and aborted my hypothetical baby.

Luckily, AB is the most easy-going person I know. With most other men, the preceding conversation would have resulted in a boyfriend-shaped hole in the door the next morning, and me coming home to a half-empty house. AB, on the other hand, took it as a compliment.

I should add that my mom ended the evening by leading a conga line through our beach house, and then passing out in bed by 10:00.

Meanwhile, now that AB and I have been dating for a year and a half, apparently every single person I encounter feels that an appropriate greeting is "Hey, how are you? When's AB going to propose?" Let me answer that en masse. I DON'T KNOW. We talk about it, but I don't like the idea of planning out a marriage before one is engaged. I am the girl. Proposing is not my job. My job duties include things like: looking pretty, making our house smell nice, making our friends, and party planning. My duties do not include things like: making the first move, taking out the garbage, or proposing. You can yell at me if you want for perpetuating outdated gender roles, but I'm not making these rules up. It's science.